


the beach

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 12:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17100263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: The Doctor takes Rose to a beach for a birthday treat. | Written for a Chrimbo advent calendar many moons ago on LJ.





	the beach

On her twenty-first birthday, he promised her anything.

“ _Anything_?” she echoed with a more-than-a-little-bit-devious smile.

“Well, basically,” he said nonchalantly, pretending that the smile wasn’t turning his insides into a flock of butterflies (what _was_ the correct term for a group of butterflies? A battalion? He liked the way that sounded—a _battalion of butterflies_ ).

“I know _exactly_ what I want to do…” She brushed by him on her way around the console, catching the end of his tie and tugging it, flicking it over his shoulder as she stepped past. “I want to be Dame Rose for the weekend, living the high life with her cheeky companion, Sir Doctor of TARDIS. Let’s find a place by the sea, where we can order room service all day.”

So they did just that. He found a beautiful, slightly impossible place by the sea, a somewhat ramshackle bed and breakfast on stilts that was completely cut off from the shore at high tide. The psychic paper (masquerading as both a platinum charge card and the credentials of visiting foreign dignitaries) guaranteed them the run of the place for two full days. 

The first thing they did, after dumping their overnight bags in the honeymoon suite, was run down the beach in their bare feet. He chased her into the foamy surf—his jacket and tie and trainers, her sandals and sunglasses, left yards behind them in a careless pile—and roared as he swept her up in his arms, giggling and kicking, before an incoming wave knocked them both over. They splashed and dunked and dove, until their clothes were soaked through and the salt was bitter on their tongues. He caught her again in a rush of water, his arm warm around her waist and his hand brushing aside the pale hair plastered to her face as she kissed him, licking away the salt until he could only taste _Rose_. That nearly indefinable taste that was all her own.

When they finally reclaimed their things and made their way back to the B&B, the tide had almost reached the stilts. They ran up the stairs two steps at a time, and when he said she could have the shower first she only smiled that smile he’d come to burn for and grabbed his shirt, pulling him in along after her. 

They used up all of the hot water, and he was glad they were the only guests—the bathroom had incredible acoustics, and they didn’t leave much to the imagination.

There was steak and lobster for dinner, with strawberry ice cream for dessert. Rose Tyler was a fiend for strawberries, he'd discovered, and he found himself enjoying the fruit more and more. Most of the evening was spent on the balcony of their room, lying stretched out in a wicker recliner, staring up at the stars. It didn’t matter that he’d taken her to see them up close, in person — or that they had stared up at them dozens of nights before. She never tired of them, always wanted to hear _one more_ story about why that one was blue and flickering, why that one was called The Empress’ Regret in the Dundra System, why that one made him sigh. He smiled softly to himself, a secret smile of pleased pride, and shifted in the chair so she could better adjust her curves to his angles. Then he took a deep breath, followed the line of her curious finger, and began another story.

Like proper hedonists, they ordered room service in the morning, and had their French toast in bed, smothered in syrup and powdered sugar and cinnamon. She laughed at how messy he was, smearing sugar across his chin, and kissed the syrup away from the corners of his mouth. 

Hours later they took a long, calming walk over the sand dunes, admiring the gulls and pipers from afar, where they looked more elegant out of earshot. Rose found a large, clear glass float in a tide pool. Bobbing there, in a swirl of bubbles and foam with the colorful fronds of seaweed waving through the water beneath it, it looked like a witch’s lost, magical crystal ball. Rose laughed at their distorted reflections and promptly used it as a magnifying glass, peering intently at the various urchins and shells and anemones in the pool.

Before dinner, they ruined the calming effect of the walk by losing themselves in the rumpled bedsheets, surfacing for breath only occasionally, far too intent on the touch of skin and the flexing of muscles and the moaning of devotions. 

They didn’t bother with dinner that night, after all—he snuck down to the kitchen around two, wearing only a loosely-cinched robe and his tie, and returned to the room with a bowl of fruit gleefully nicked from the fridge. 

When they finally returned to the TARDIS, parked by a rocky outcropping a half mile away, they were both a bit sunburnt and somewhat dried out from the saltwater. But despite the tightened, sore skin, he could only smile as she kicked off her sandals and rushed to her room, eager to place her new shells and crystal ball on display amidst the other trinkets she’d collected.

Later, after nothing was said and everything was done, he found himself wishing that he could remember beaches more fondly. If only that weekend could have surpassed that final day; if only he could smile and think of strawberry ice cream and the salt on her tongue rather than the final look on her face and the salt of her tears as they glittered on her cheeks. 

He would never be able to look at a beach happily again.


End file.
